Privacy Is Dead – Get Over It ..!

Hello,

Below you will hear and see just a small example of how you are and can be tracked. This is also offered to a few members who asked me several question relating to a few sensitive questions. Obviously this video show us what is public knowledge, that being said, you just might want to consider who, what, when, how and why.

Google Video Link

This is uber cool. Since no one has replied and im unable to see mouse clicks and views through here :-), i guess it was time to post a few random and co-ordinated posts.

Let the games begin.

Google Video Link

The Turf War Over Cyberwar

The computer wizards at the national security Agency's tightly guarded headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., think they know better than anyone just how vulnerable America is to a massive cyberattack. It's their job to monitor rogue activity on networks around the world. In recent years, hackers in Russia and China—possibly operating with government backing—have rummaged through U.S. and other Western data banks for sensitive information. Russia, in particular, has demonstrated a willingness to wage cyberwarfare. It has launched hack attacks against uppity former Soviet satellites, including a blitz on Georgia last summer that knocked out its electronic banking system for 20 days, according to a NATO report obtained by NEWSWEEK.

To bolster U.S. defenses against a similar strike, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is weighing the creation of a new Pentagon Cyber Command. But the prospect has already sparked a turf war over NSA's role in the unit. One main goal of the new command, said a former senior U.S. official familiar with the debate who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive subject, is to get more help from NSA's computer geniuses on protecting U.S. networks. But except in rare circumstances, the NSA is supposed to stay out of homeland surveillance, and efforts to expand its domestic portfolio are almost always radioactive in Washington—as amply demonstrated by the recent controversy over alleged snooping on California Rep. Jane Harman. Indeed, during a rare public speech last week, NSA chief Keith Alexander said his agency does "not want to run cybersecurity for the U.S. government."

But NSA still expects a significant role. During the Bush administration, then–defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave an expanded cybersecurity role to U.S. Strategic Command, the Omaha-based military unit in charge of nuclear warfare and, according to the former official, Stratcom is loath to give it up. But Nebraska is hundreds of miles from NSA's experts in Maryland; some proponents of the new command think it would be silly to leave Stratcom in charge. Nevertheless, according to a senior defense official, who also asked for anonymity, current SecDef Robert Gates will "likely" hand the new command under to Stratcom, with a four-star Air Force general in charge. (NSA declined to make a further comment; Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh said, "No decision has been made.")
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In truth, the U.S. government isn't that worried about all-out cyberwarfare from China or Russia, because it would not be in their economic interests. What does scare the nation's top electronic spies is the prospect of a nongovernment actor—Al Qaeda, for example—developing the required expertise. And without the swift help of NSA's top geeks, the former senior official said, "We're going to have a catastrophe.

Since you have taken the time to read this, i guess its now for the good stuff, view the image and notice the date.

I did a report in college in 1985 about how government agencies were mining civilian databases because they had more info than their own.
I'm more worried about identity theft than any gov agency.

Originally posted by Grimstad
I did a report in college in 1985 about how government agencies were mining civilian databases because they had more info than their own.
I'm more worried about identity theft than any gov agency.

Indeed i would agree with you. The problem ultimately is on the client user and what information has been entered online in any electronic data recorded system.
That could range from forums to the most stupid form (facebook, myspace, etc). One simple method of supplying yourself with that extra help is to change your passwords frequently as you can and use passwords that have no direct bearing to your real or e-life.

You should also have a blocking system for any incoming our outgoing packets, not to mention a descent firewall. Also and well in my world, every file that resides on your computer or portable media device or mem stick MUST be encrypted, blowfish is an a descent encryption, but there are a few more advanced encryptions out there which are available to the people who are looking for that extra boost in privacy.

Multiple encryption systems are a head ache to maintain, but that would zero out most of the idiots who have some basic knowledge of encryption but don't have the spinal code. Well beyond that, i guess if you did have knowledge you would be more or less approached by an alphabet agency whilst you were either in University or via electronic means.
Oh and by the way, i have read random posts about people degrading the service and financial rewards when associating with such agency's or private sectors, all i would like to add is that, the benefits outweigh what most with half an imagination could possibly handle.

Criminal hackers continue to penetrate many more company networks than most administrators care to admit, according to two security experts who offered a list of the most effective exploits used to gain entry.

Topping the list is an attack dubbed super-flexible pivoting. It abuses Linux machines connected to a network's DMZ, or demilitarized zone, to bypass corporate firewalls and access sensitive resources on an internal network. The technique has already been used to steal vast amounts of data, including "millions of credit cards," said Ed Skoudis, a senior security consultant for InGuardians, a security company that frequently responds to major network breaches.

"If the bad guy can get control of one of your DMZ machines, he doesn't need to make inbound connections there anymore," Skoudis said during a panel at the RSA security conference. "Instead, he can make outbound connections that effectively give him inbound access on your internal network."

Another powerful exploit Skoudis is seeing frequently is the evolution of an attack known as pass the hash, which is used to penetrate Windows servers. Windows authentication works by checking a user's cryptographic hash, rather than password. Attackers can steal the hash by exploiting a simple unpatched browser or application vulnerability and then injecting it into the memory of the Windows box.

Skoudis was joined by Johannes Ullrich, the CTO of the SANS Internet Storm Center. Together, they presented their list of the world's most dangerous new attack techniques and ways organizations can protect themselves against them.

"The real big problem here is user education," Ullrich told a standing-room audience. "And user education is more than going to the user and saying don't click on it. User education also means getting your own house in order."

Too many organizations are still failing to patch applications such as Adobe's Flash and Reader, he added. In other cases, they aren't teaching employees how to avoid social-engineering attacks on social networking sites and elsewhere.

Other dangerous exploits include:

Advances in wireless attacks, such as those that hack a client machine and then use it to connect to an access point tied to a corporate network. Interestingly, this is easier to do with Windows Vista and Windows 7 than their predecessors, Skoudis said.

Attacks that take advantage of shortcomings in SSL, or secure sockets layer. The most glaring are SSL's focus on failed connections rather than those that are successful and the number of banks that still use non-SSL login pages. Others include the recently demonstrated method for spoofing SSL sessions.

Attacks against unprotected VoIP, or voice over IP, systems. Since the beginning of the year, there have been some 5,000 scans of port 5060 every day. That's about five times the rate as in all of 2008, said Ullrich, who monitors internet activity using half a million sensors across the globe

The take-away is that admins should assume they've already been hacked.

"I believe that a determined but not necessarily well-funded attacker can pretty much break into any organization," Skoudis said. "If you think it's less than 50 percent, I think you need to look a little more carefully."

Given the risk of injecting agents via email or internal pm systems i would be careful and on alert about any method incorporating them. Although they only reside on your mem and unless he does a shell change you would be safe after every reboot*as mentioned above*.
Then again, you only need about 3 mins to successfully deploy agents into any server/client.

Hackers compromise Kerala govt website

Saturday,2 May 2009 22:32 hrs IST

Thiruvananthapuram: The website of the state education department has been hacked by hackers allegedly from Iran. The hackers defaced the top news section of the website www.education.kerala.gov.in and posted a message that says that this website has been hacked by Ashiana Digital Security Team. The link from the post leads to a page which gives information regarding the hackers group.

www.manoramaonline.com...@@@

Well, as everything approaches i guess this section will hold some fun posts, hopefully ill have some sc of the sites before there taken down. But that would be difficult almost impossible, but were there's a will there's a way.

Express News 5/1/2009 10:44:21 AM - The official Army website was hacked last night by web hackers . Army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanyakara said site has now been temporarily shut down but will be restored soon.

www.expressnews.lk...

Hackers phish for Facebook bait
Sunday, 03 May 2009

Facebook has been the target of a massive phishing scam that tricked users into revealing account passwords through a bogus login page of the social networking site.

The company reacted to the security threat by blocking the link that was being used to redirect members to the fake webpage and said it would expand its alliance with net security firm MarkMonitor in a bid to step up protection.

The page is believed to have captured password information, which hackers used to access Facebook profiles and impersonate users of legitimate accounts to lure other users into the trap.

www.arabianbusiness.com...

I guess its what i have mentioned in my own way within one or two or perhaps three swine flue threads, people are way to focussed on what they are being force fed than really taking notice. Although this has been common knowledge that any major news breaking event is like an open invitation for who ever revolves around these methods to happily create and round up the necessary amount of users to increase their intrusion success rate.

As ongoing T&C are being changed without being publicly shown apart from a group of people who make sure that any changes are to be presented to public knowledge. So when you enter and agree just like any other site you are bound by these terms and conditions without any exceptions.

Update on T&C

www.facebook.com...